


Succor

by toffeecape



Series: Bird Rock Lambchop (Bird Bigger Bird) [3]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blindshipping, Boys in Skirts, Dom/sub, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Id Fic, Identity Porn, Kitchen Sex, M/M, Magical Healing Cock, Makeup, Nightmares, Nipple Piercings, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Puzzleshipping, Sexting, Street Harassment, Sub Drop, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 23:52:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14725988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toffeecape/pseuds/toffeecape
Summary: Two different problems with the same solution.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s a shit day from the moment Yugi steps out his door and into a puddle, soaking his feet to the skin. It doesn’t get better at the office, people losing messages and tempers left and right. There’s a debilitating bug in the new game engine, and Rebecca’s code-monkey pride is inflamed enough she feels compelled to chase it down herself, to the point that Yugi has to actually have words with her.

“Rebecca,” he says, as calmly as he can and mindful of how sound carries in the open-office layout, “you have eight minions sitting around with nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs and worry about getting fired.”

“They should be worried!” she hisses. “This fucking code is all but summoning Cthulhu in the breakroom every time an avatar turns ninety degrees to the left! They should have asked for help ages ago, before it turned into spaghetti.”

“Then you need to lead by example, Rebecca, and ask them to help you now.”

She blows her bangs off her forehead, red-faced. “I didn’t go into this job because I wanted to deal with _people.”_

“Your bad luck that you’re the best, kiddo. But these guys are pretty good, too. You need to use them. What would you be doing right now if you had eight more pairs of eyes and hands?”

“Well, I’d… right. Okay.” She minimizes her command-line interface and grabs a pen and scratchpad. “Send them in.”

“Your cubicle’s not that big. Take Room 318, with the whiteboard.”

She smiles crookedly. “Fear the Dry Erase Markers of Bugfinder Dispatch!”

“Happy hunting.”

Then he has to go and sit through a shitty video conference. Demos and paywalls and lootboxes, and how can we further _increase_ our _monetization?_ Need the shareholders _remind_ management that continued funding for the next big title is _contingent_ upon the release of the agreed-upon number of mobile games, and _blah_ blah _blah_ blah _blah._ Yugi schools his features to blankness and speaks only when called upon by his boss - who, in fairness, is just as carefully blank. Making games isn’t - heh - all fun and games.

After he escapes that dragons’ den, he needs to text Atem to cheer himself up.

**having a shit day, want 2 spoil u 2nite. thoughts 4 dinner?**

**Must you type like that?**

Actually, Yugi goes over his texts to Atem and edits them before sending, to maximize the annoying chatspeak. The things we do for love.

**i could rly go 4 a hot beef injection 8===D omnomnom**

The silence that follows is eloquent. Yugi’s not really a sadist (seriously, he’s done some soul-searching on this one) but there are certain contexts wherein Atem’s suffering brings him joy. Playing the crude bit of rough to his royal manners is definitely one of them.

But then:

**If we make tabbouleh you can have me for dessert.**

Yugi pumps his fist. **deal! do we need any ingredients?**

**I can get parsley and fresh mint on my way home. I think we have everything else.**

Looking forward to lavishing some attention on Atem gets Yugi through the rest of his day, but just barely; the dark cloud over the office seems to have settled in for the duration. Quitting time feels like a jailbreak. Outside the building, Yugi takes a deep breath, savoring the post-rain smell of the air.

His relief is short-lived, however. Just down the block, a man is pursuing a girl in a school uniform. Yugi can’t quite make out what he’s yelling, but from the miserable way the girl hunches her shoulders and walks as fast as she can, it’s disgusting. Everyone’s looking away. Yugi starts running to catch up, bracing for a confrontation.  

Someone coming the other way beats him to it - someone with a very familiar booming voice. “Hey! Just what do you think you’re doing? Your behaviour is totally unacceptable!”

Atem. He must have been coming to meet Yugi. Yugi starts running faster.

Sure enough, there he is, fists on hips (and of course it’s a skirt day - a cheerful turquoise number, paired with a white muscle tee), feet planted shoulder width apart, squaring off against this guy who has easily eight inches and a hundred pounds on him. It’s a lipstick day, too - a slash of bright red visible even from a distance, moving as he bellows,

“Can’t you see this girl is uncomfortable? Why would you say such disgraceful things - to anyone, let alone a child! And _chasing_ her! In some places you would be whipped for behaving so badly!”

The man is getting over his shock and becoming nervous, looking around at the other people on the sidewalk who are now staring at the scene Atem is making. His fists clench, clearly thinking about turning it into a fight, when Yugi catches up.

“Don’t even try it,” he spits, “I can have security out of the building behind us and on your ass in thirty seconds.” The man looks Yugi up and down, taking in the badge on Yugi’s lanyard, and starts to slink away. “Hold the fuck up! This young lady needs to decide if she wants to press charges before you’re going anywhere.”

He turns and looks up at the schoolgirl. “I’m sorry that happened to you. Are you all right?”

She nods shakily, looking dazed at the turn things have taken.

“Do you want him secured and charged with harassment?”

“I just want to go home,” she blurts out, and bites her lip.

“Okay,” Yugi says gently, “okay. But I’d feel better if you didn’t go alone. Is there someone who can come meet you?”

“M-my friend. She’s not far.” She digs out her phone and starts texting.

Someone pipes up, “The police are actually on their way. I called them when the tiny drag queen started yelling.”

Atem spins toward the speaker, ready to go off all over again, when someone else says, “And I got the whole thing on video. It’s already getting hits on Youtube.”

The creep groans and covers his face with his hands.

Atem whirls back to the second bystander, demanding, “You filmed it instead of doing something? What is _wrong_ with you?”

Yugi touches his shoulder. “Hey babe, let’s maybe stay focused. We can give that evidence to the cops and this girl won’t even have to talk to them. Because our brave Youtuber will of course stick around and hand over their footage, _right?”_ The photographer looks down and scowls, but he doesn't leave. 

Atem gives the crowd at large a venomous glare, breathing hard through flared nostrils, but subsides in favor of keeping an eye on the creep, who is now hunched on the sidewalk with his arms around his belly.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” he says.

Atem shakes the grocery bag still dangling from his hand. “There’s a sale on parsley, but you’re going to miss it.”

* * *

“I don’t like it when people call me a drag queen. These are just my clothes. Drag queens put _considerably_ more effort into their art.”

“It isn’t right, other me, but not everybody thinks that way.”

“Many people barely think at all,” Atem grumbles, chopping the fresh mint into flecks and scraping it from the cutting board into the bowl.

“No argument here. Hey,” Yugi slides his hands around Atem’s hips. “I’m proud of you, choosing a yelling solution instead of a fighting one.”

Atem leans his head back against Yugi’s shoulder. “I thought about it,” he admits, “but I didn’t want to frighten that poor child further.”

“Good call.” Nevermind how Atem was half the guy’s size; Yugi is the last person who can throw stones there.

“Also… I really did have someone whipped for doing something similar once, before - everything. It turned my stomach. The me that came out of the Puzzle wouldn’t have that problem. I’d rather leave which way I’d feel now a mystery.” He won’t tell Yugi exactly what happened in the time they shared a body before Yugi became aware of him. Yugi believes him when he says he doesn’t remember it all clearly; he’s also cutting Atem some slack on account of being… unbalanced, at the time. He knows people got hurt, some badly, and that Atem will forevermore distrust his inclination to violence. He can’t say that's a bad thing, so long as Atem doesn’t beat himself up about it.

“In this case, how you would have felt about it is irrelevant. You made a nonviolent choice instead - a smart one. I’m proud of you,” he repeats, and Atem rests a little more weight against him, soaking up the praise. “You did good.”

Atem turns and kisses Yugi. He smells like garlic and tastes like tomato. Yugi is sorely tempted to hoist him onto the counter, but Atem made requests about the order he wanted to be spoiled in. He should check in first.

“Are you hungry?”

Atem stills. “One minute.” He turns back to the counter, mixes the mint into the tabbouleh, and stows the bowl in the fridge. “It’s better after it sits for a while anyway.” He quickly rinses his hands and then faces Yugi again. “Where were we?” He dries his hands on Yugi’s shirt.

“I,” Yugi cups Atem’s butt, “was about to have you,” he lifts Atem onto the counter and shoves the implements out of the way behind him in one smooth motion, “for a pre-dinner snack.”

Atem bends down and kisses Yugi again, cupping his face and sweeping his tongue inside Yugi’s mouth. Yugi meets it with his own, strokes it, sucks on it. He reaches under the muscle tee, sliding over warm skin and hard muscle up to Atem’s chest, to play with his nipples and the barbell piercings in both. Atem’s groan reverberates through Yugi’s body.

“These were such a great surprise,” Yugi says against Atem’s lips, lipstick now smeared on them both. “Making two of my favorite toys even better.” The piercings are a few years old now, but Yugi still delights in them, nursing Atem’s responses from them every chance he gets.

“You - ahh! You always say that,” Atem pants.

“And it’s always true.” Yugi twists both barbells, oh-so-gently, and Atem _keens._ He takes the hard little buds between his thumbs and fingertips and squeezes and rolls them, and Atem sobs into his mouth. He pushes them flat to feel the metal bars underneath, and Atem breaks the kiss to cry out, “Please!”

“Please what?”

 _“Please_ suck my cock! Gods!” Atem leans back on his hands, arm muscles bunching under his weight, and arches his hips toward Yugi. He’s a disheveled vision: wild hair, ruined makeup, shirt rucked up to reveal his pointed nipples and their sparkling jewelry, skirt tented, legs splayed. Lust slams into Yugi from behind, and abruptly he doesn’t want to play so much as _devour._

He flips up Atem’s skirt, pathetically grateful that going commando is Atem’s sartorial hill to die on. “Put your knees on my shoulders,” he directs, and Atem scrambles to comply, shimmying to maneuver on the tiny platform of the counter. With the weight of his legs on Yugi’s back, and his thighs warming Yugi’s neck, Yugi bends his head and greedily slides Atem’s cock into his mouth.

God, how he loves blowing Atem. Everything they do is awesome, but if he had to pick a favorite, this would be a strong contender. Atem is so firm and thick and heavy on his tongue, leaking traces of salty precome. He feels tenderly protective of Atem’s exposed cockhead, with no forgiving slide of foreskin, and lavishes everything with extra saliva to compensate - of which there is plenty, because the funky-spicy Atem-smell always makes him drool. He’s never gotten the hang of deep-throating, but that doesn’t stop him from trying, fucking his own mouth as deep as he can before he has to back off and breathe.

It’s possible he has a slight oral fixation.

He loves being so close to Atem’s core, feeling his abdomen rise and fall with increasing speed as Yugi works him, hearing his voice grow breathy and desperate as he struggles to take all the sensation Yugi is giving him, until, one way or another, he breaks.

This time, he breaks by tugging Yugi’s hair, and saying, “Wait, stop, stop.”

Yugi lifts his head, licking his lips. “Yeah?”

“I want to come with you inside me.”

“Sure thing.” Yugi reaches into Atem’s crack, but Atem catches his hand and says, “With you _fucking_ me, Yugi.”

“Oh! Okay, uh, bedroom?”

“Too far.” Atem looks around and grabs the olive oil from earlier. “This’ll work.”

“Seriously?”

Atem shrugs. “It was good enough for the Greeks.” He wastes no time wetting his fingers and stuffing two inside himself, way faster than Yugi would go. He gasps and bites his lip.

“Hey, hey, slow down,” Yugi soothes. “Get down here with me; there’s no way we’ll both fit on that counter.” He guides Atem down until he’s sitting on Yugi’s lap, with Yugi kneeling on the floor and Atem’s back braced against the cabinet doors.

An idea comes to him, so simple and hot he’s surprised he’s never thought of it before. “And let me in on that Greek action.” He slips a finger in with Atem’s inside his ass, stroking and tangling with them. It feels oddly like a kiss, and then he kisses Atem’s mouth, too. From above and below, he guides Atem into a slower, less frantic tempo, then sits back and looks at him.

Atem’s eyes are huge, shocked by yet another new thing they’ve discovered together: their fingers inside him together like this, slick with oil, sliding against each other and against his silky, clinging inner walls. “Yugi,” he whispers.

“I know.” Yugi always feels a sense of awe when Atem gets like this: vulnerable, open, completely attuned and responsive to everything Yugi does. Nobody knows that this is how they are in private (although their closest friends probably have an inkling), because only Yugi sees this; Atem only opens like this for him. He feels huge, ferocious, like there is nothing he would not do to protect and provide for this man.

Yugi thinks that with anyone else, he would worry about being too much, but he and Atem understand each other. Atem does not need less than Yugi has to give.

He kisses Atem’s mouth, which has gone slack and soft; Atem can only vaguely angle his head for easier access, too overwhelmed in the moment to coordinate more. Their fingers keep moving in his ass, twining together and then spreading apart, until they fall into a kind of rhythm echoed by the sway of their bodies together. They sway faster, until they’re half-frotting, and with an effort Yugi remembers their goal.

“Atem,” he says, “do you still want me to fuck you?” Atem nods vaguely, and Yugi frees his finger, and urges Atem to pull his out as well - not without regret; they are _definitely_ revisiting this concept at a later date. Maybe in reverse; Yugi likes butt stuff too, even if he doesn’t require it regularly like Atem does.

He pulls Atem closer, spreading his asscheeks as well as he can when they’re coated in oil. He was going to oil up his cock, too, but Atem is so slippery that it’s really not necessary. Also Yugi has been leaking precome steadily for… quite some time, long enough that his briefs are kind of gross when he shoves them down with his pants. He lines Atem up, and Atem impales himself as soon as he feels the head of Yugi’s cock against his hole.

“Fuck!” Yugi shouts. It’s a lot of stimulation for his cock at once, after taking a backseat to revelling in All Things Atem up to this point.

 _“Yes,”_ groans Atem at the same time. “Oh, Yugi, partner, you’re in me so deep.” He tries to lift himself with his legs, but oil has dripped all the way down to his feet, and he slips repeatedly before giving up with a breathless laugh. “I can’t move.”

“Hang onto me,” Yugi suggests. Atem grips his shoulders, using his arms to direct his own rise and fall on Yugi’s length, and that works better. It’s also an impressive show of strength. Yugi takes decent care of himself, but Atem trains with _intent,_ and it shows.

Yugi starts lifting up on his knees to meet Atem every time he comes down. The increased force of their joining creates a slapping sound, and jolts more sounds from Atem’s throat.

“Ah-ah-ah! Yu-gi!”

“Oh fuck, other me, you’re so gorgeous, you feel so good,” Yugi chants, starting to lose his mind to the slick, tight heat engulfing him, the strong limbs entangling him, the look on Atem’s beautiful face as Yugi’s cock drives him wild. He takes Atem’s cock in one hand and starts jacking it, hard and fast. “Come for me now, Atem, love you, _love you-”_

Atem drives himself down one last time, moaning harshly as his cock starts to twitch in Yugi’s grip. With his other hand Yugi pinches one of Atem’s nipples, and Atem clamps down on Yugi’s cock and _screams._ That does it for Yugi, and he presses even tighter to Atem with a loud grunt as his own orgasm shakes him apart.

The kitchen is strangely quiet after that, filled with only the sound of their heavy breathing as they sag against each other.

Yugi breaks the silence first. “My knees are killing me,” he groans.

Atem laughs. “I’m just glad there are no handles on these cabinet doors.” He tries to get up, but his feet slip again. He frowns. “I don’t think we can walk away from this one, partner.”

He means that literally, dragging Yugi down until they more or less roll onto their sides away from the oil spill, and Atem separates from him onto his hands and knees. Yugi gives him a hand up.

“I may have to burn this skirt,” Atem mourns. “Nothing really gets oil out.”

“We’ll get it dry-cleaned, and tip extra,” says Yugi.

When they - and the kitchen - are clean enough no one is likely to slip and break their neck, Atem gets the tabbouleh out of the fridge, and lets Yugi pull him down into his lap to eat it together, right out of the bowl.  

Several bites in, Atem pauses. “Earlier, you said you were having a bad day?”

Yugi rolls his forehead against Atem’s shoulder with a smile. “It got better.”


	2. Chapter 2

Up three. Left. Down nine. Right sixty-seven. Left two. Mark each new door on both sides. Set a trap in each new room.

Find a door already marked. A loop exists.

Explode the loop. None may know.

The corridors scrape and groan as they multiply, new connections and branches of shadowed stone. Doors and doors and doors, rooms and rooms and rooms, to be laid with traps and checked for any navigable pattern.

Once it would cut its hands and mark the doors with its blood. It still recognizes blood, because sometimes it sees some flaking off a door. But it has forgotten hands. Now it is shadow and flame, and marks the doors with char.

It thinks it could crush the doors, crumple them, but that would defeat the purpose.

The purpose of what?

None may know.

May _it_ know?

None. Continue building. All must get lost in this place.

Certainly _it_ is very lost. Once it screamed words, until it forgot words. Then it just screamed, until it forgot a mouth. It can still howl (a noise like a fire sucking air into a chimney), and does, though it doesn’t remember why.

Maybe just to have something to hear, beyond the grinding of the stone.

“Atem! Atem, _wake up!”_

It-he-Yami-Atem opens his eyes. His chest heaves, his hands scrabble in the darkness until Yugi switches on the lamp and turns to him. He catches Atem’s hands, moves to lie on top of him, hot against Atem’s clammy skin, heavy on his chest, forcing Atem to breathe with effort, more slowly and deeply.

“That’s it, that’s right, just breathe. I’ve got you.” Yugi’s face is pale, shocked awake out of deep sleep, trembling a little where his hands hold Atem’s pinned to the bed. His eyes are wide with concern, but he keeps his voice calm as he repeats, “I’ve got you, Atem. You’re here with me.”

Atem becomes aware of his heart, slamming in his chest until he can almost hear it. His breathing slows and deepens, and the wordless burning resolves into identifiable feelings: rage and despair, reactionary terror and relief. He chooses to let the others drain out of him like water out of a basket, and focus on the relief. Focus on Yugi.

Yugi watches him carefully through this, smiling weakly as he feels Atem start to calm down under him. “There you go. Good job. Can I hug you now?”

Atem nods, and Yugi releases his hands to wrap his arms around his shoulders instead. Atem embraces him in turn, hugging Yugi to his chest. He knows they are both the same size, both very small men, but even so Yugi often seems shockingly small to him, to hold so much. He knows the bedrock in Yugi’s soul, had once been planted there and grown back into a person, and he can feel that same anchoring stability still, even though they are now ostensibly two whole people.

(Although, Atem does wonder about that - being two whole people. If there’s a limit to how much time they want to spend touching each other, they haven’t found it yet. Atem would need about five thousand years to find his, but Yugi’s life has vaguely resembled normal from a distance, and he shows no signs of hitting his limit for contact either.)

“That seemed like a bad one,” Yugi says, face pressed into his neck. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Atem shrugs. “Just… fractals.”

“Building the inside of the Puzzle again, huh?”

“Yes.” Somewhere in the middle, he thinks. By the end he had stopped zooming around so much, instead floating as slowly as possible in gelid silence. He shudders.

Yugi says, “I wish…”

“Careful.”

“I know. And I know it doesn’t work this way, but I wish I could make your mind believe that it’s over.”

“Joey says this kind of thing starts to happen _because_ your mind believes it’s over.”

“Like it’s processing later what it couldn’t at the time. I know. It sucks.”

“It does.” Atem sighs. _“I_ wish I didn’t wake you with it.”

“Hey.” Yugi lays a finger on his lips, then kisses him. “None of that. I’d be upset if you didn’t.”

“Even at…” he cranes his neck to see over Yugi to the clock, “4:30 am? Ugh.” The perfect time to fail to get back to sleep before they had to get up.

“It’s okay,” Yugi murmurs, and switches the lamp back off. “We can just rest.”

It _is_ restful, curled together in the warm darkness. Atem drifts despite himself into a light doze, mindlessly stroking one of the longer sections of Yugi’s hair, far enough back that he hopes it isn’t tugging on his head.

It’s so soft and fine, it almost seems to cling to his fingers. It occurs to him that it… sort of _is_ clinging, actually, more than it should be. He looks down and sees his fingers entangled in cobwebs trailing from Yugi’s mummified head, obscenely bare of gauze or ornaments. They’re lying on the scraps of a shattered sarcophagus in a ransacked tomb.

“Gah!” he sits bolt upright, into their actual bedroom this time, Yugi snuffling awake where he’s slid down to Atem’s lap. “Fuck, _fuck.”_ He falls back again, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyeballs.

“Aw, no, again?”

“Mmf.”

Yugi’s alarm chooses that moment to go off. Atem has dozed well past when he usually wakes up. “Want me to call in?” Yugi asks. “Take a bad brain day?”

For a moment he wants nothing more, but. “You have that meeting.”

“Fuck the meeting.”

“And I’d rather keep busy.” True. Better not to give those images room to rot in his head all day. He heaves himself out of bed.

Yugi frowns at him, chewing his lip, then nods like he’s come to a decision. “Okay.” His voice drops. “But I’m sending you off my way.” Atem’s breath catches. Yugi takes him by the hand and draws him into the bathroom.

He starts the water in the shower, then turns to Atem and unbuckles his collar, rubbing the skin beneath. He turns back, tests the water, and says, “Get in.” Atem’s feet seem to move of their own accord.

The shower is almost too hot, and it banishes the crawling chill from Atem’s skin. He moves to try and wash himself, but Yugi stops him. “Let me.”

They do this fairly often, usually in the bath with Atem already pretty relaxed, when it melts him into goo. Under the shower spray with Atem fairly tense, it feels more like he’s being grounded and redirected. Yugi’s firm scrubbing with the washcloth draws Atem’s attention to each part of his body in turn. Face and neck, shoulders and back, arms and hands, chest and belly. He’s gentle with the cartouche chain and over Atem’s piercings, careful not to catch them, but Atem still hums as his nipples harden anyway.

Yugi drops to his knees, looking up at Atem with an insouciant grin for how near he is to Atem’s thickening cock - only to start washing his feet. Atem laughs, already a little breathless, putting one hand on the wall for balance while Yugi lifts each of his feet in turn. Finally, he works his way up his legs, and then washes his genitals and ass almost as matter-of-factly as the rest of him - almost. There’s an affectionate little fondle to both, before Yugi lets the washcloth fall and stands, eyes bright, to kiss Atem and grope him eagerly with his bare hands. Atem moans, putting his weight on the wall and spreading his legs for Yugi to grind against him, which he does for a few glorious, slick-skinned seconds before breaking away.

“God, you’re so hot,” he pants, running his hands up and down Atem’s sides.

Atem can guess what his face looks like, heavy-lidded with his mouth partly open. “Hot for you,” he manages. Yugi shudders and presses close for another deep kiss, sweeping the inside of Atem’s mouth with his tongue. He looks a little crazed when he backs off again.

“No, no. Stick to the plan,” he mutters to himself.

Atem pouts. “Does the plan end with me getting off?”

Yugi winks. “Eventually.”

“Uh oh.”

Yugi chuckles and turns off the water. When he straightens up again he seems calmer, and has his dom voice back.

“I’m gonna take care of you, other me. Not just this morning, but all day.” He says this while towelling Atem off, as careful and thorough as he was with the washcloth. He never sounds cold or bossy when he’s like this, just calm, gentle, and steady, and it fills Atem with warmth.

When Atem is dry, Yugi puts his collar back on, then goes for their jewelry box. He takes out the wrist and ankle cuffs that match the collar, and puts them on very snug.

“Does that feel okay?” he asks, checking the circulation in Atem’s fingers and toes.

“Yes,” Atem says softly. He loves the cuffs, wears them often just for looks, but they’re invested with extra meaning when Yugi puts them on him.

Yugi rummages around a little more, and removes a little mound of chain, glinting with reddish-purple tourmalines. Atem’s breath speeds up. With great care, Yugi attaches the charms to his nipple rings, so that they hang down in loops from the barbells. The stones give them enough weight that he can feel them tugging constantly, and he knows it will be more noticeable when he moves and they start to swing.

“You’re going to wear these all day,” Yugi tells him, “under your clothes. You’re always pretty, but only you and I will know just _how_ pretty, how you’re suffering just a little, feeling me here.” He flicks the charms gently, and Atem moans. “I’d like you to wear the matching earrings, so you’ll be reminded again whenever you look in a mirror. Will you do that for me?” Atem nods.

“Last question: do you want me to mark you somewhere as well?”

Atem licks his lips. “Yes, please.”

Yugi smiles. “Okay.” He lowers his head and licks a spot just above Atem’s left nipple, then sets his teeth in and starts to suck _hard._ It hurts, more than it would in the middle of sex, and Atem cries out and clutches at Yugi for balance. When Yugi releases him, there is a livid purple hickey on Atem’s skin, surrounded by fading red indents from his teeth. Atem looks down at his chest and traces it with wonder. Yugi looks with him.

“You look incredible. I’m working really hard to not have you right here and now.”

“You could,” Atem breathes, “I wish you would.” He’s been more than half-hard since the shower, swimming in heat.

Yugi stifles a groan and palms himself roughly. “Nope. You wanted a work day, and you’re going to get it.” He picks out a collar for himself and puts it on. “Now do your makeup and get dressed while I make breakfast, okay?” He kisses Atem’s nose and walks out of the bathroom.

Atem looks at himself in the mirror: bruised and flushed, adorned nipples already in sore-looking points. The clenching horror he woke up with has been utterly banished, and even as he remembers it, it can’t get back in; he’s too aroused and too full of love. His boyfriend is a genius. He puts in the requested matching earrings and reaches for his eyeliner.

* * *

Yugi keeps up his attentions throughout the day, in the form of texts.

**i keep getting distracted thinking about how those jewels match ur eyes** comes through just as Atem is sitting down with a client.

“Something wrong, ‘Mr. Rosetta’?”

“Hmm? Oh. No, Professor.” The postdoctoral fellow smirks knowingly at Atem’s blush, and Atem quickly diverts him by translating the tablet he has brought Atem - a very boring taxation notice - into Upper, Lower, Delta, and signed Egyptian, as well as Nubian and Semitic. 

The postdoc looks like he might burst into tears. “You just blew up six years of my career.”

Atem squirms, and manfully stays silent when the motion jostles his nipple rings. “Sorry?”

“I’ll survive; you also just blew up _ten_ years of my least favorite colleague’s career.” He squints at Atem. “What the hell kind of cult were you and your associate _in?_ Are they accepting new applicants?”

Atem glares. “No,” he snaps, “and any more such questions will result in breach of contract.”

The postdoc holds up placating hands. “Okay, okay! It was just a joke!”

“It wasn’t funny. Restrain yourself in future or tell your university they can try their luck with the Coptic Christians.”

He goes pale and says quickly, “I’m sorry, Mr. Rosetta, sir. It won’t happen again.”

“Good.” Ishizu went out on a limb to establish Atem as a pseudonymous consultant. He won’t permit any speculation that could damage her privacy, or their arrangement.

“Is now a bad time to ask if you can write those translations out in hieratic and kanji?”

“‘Writing twice reading, foreign tongues thrice’,” Atem says absently, mind still on the Ishtars, Ishizu and her scarred brothers.

“What?”

“What?”

“I didn’t understand what you said just now.”

Atem colors as he realizes he’d said the old scribes’ market refrain in Egyptian. “My apologies.” He hands over a copy of his price list. “You may want to consult your employer before placing an order for a written translation.”

The postdoc scans the page and swallows. “I- yes. May I contact you by email with their decision?”

“By all means.” He shows the professor out, flips his little storefront sign to “Closed”, and takes out his phone.

He texts back to Yugi, **That sounds like something I would say**.

**more of ur good habits rubbing off on me**

Atem waits for it.

**and speaking of rubbing off <3 **

**I knew you were going to say that.**

**how r ur nipples?**

Two can play at this game. **Sensitive. I should have worn a different shirt. You’re barely going to be able to touch them tonight after teasing me all day like this.**

**fuck thats so hot**

**Now I have to go pretend to be a normal person eating lunch with Joey.**

**say hi 2 him 4 me**

* * *

“Yugi says hello, by the way.”

“It’s weird that it only takes a coupla cellphones for you two to act almost the same as when you shared a brain.”

Atem shrugs. “Sending messages is sending messages.”

“Deep. You should make that into your business motto. How’s that goin’, anyway?”

“It feels strange to make such good money from something I was expected to have mastered by age twelve.”

“Hey, if you’re good at something, never do it for free. Look at me! Who’da thought calling drunks out on their bullshit was the kind of thing you could turn into a job?”

“Addictions counselor is a good fit for you, Joey.” Atem picks at the label on his beer bottle. “I think I’m still looking for what I’m meant to do with myself.”

“Didn’t you do it? Sealing away Dork, and then blasting him to smithereens?”

Atem surprises himself with how hard he laughs, and has to fight not to react when the motion jostles his piercings. “Zorc,” he says at last.

“Yeah, no. Nobody whose body is that much penis gets a cool name.”

Atem dissolves into giggles. Joey grins at him, clearly pleased with himself.

“But seriously, you did the thing. Gave your life and fuckin’ _then some._ If all you do this time around is find something you don’t mind doin’ to get by, and some people to love - which, having already found the second thing is the whole reason you came back, don’t even _front.”_

“Oh, I’m not,” Atem drawls, with both nipples and a giant hickey throbbing under his shirt, a cock that hasn’t been fully soft since this morning, and a cellphone vibrating with Yugi’s dirty texts in his pocket. “Believe me.”

“Good. My point is, I think you’re allowed to be happy with just that.”

“Is this therapy?” Atem says suspiciously, “are you therapizing me?”

“Don’t worry, I charge a sliding scale. Friends pay in swigs of beer when mine runs out but I don’t wanna order a whole new one.” He takes exactly that.

They part ways with a backslapping hug and a promise to do lunch again soon, and as Atem walks back to his office he finally checks his phone.

**this sandwich is good but ur dick would taste better**

**i want 2 make something nice 4 dinner but i also want 2 jump ur bones as soon as u get in the door**

**something thatll keep i think so i can do both**

**better make it finger food so i can feed u after ive fucked u so good u can’t move**

**You know,** Atem replies, **Joey just spent lunch giving me sophisticated and life-affirming advice.**

**im life affirming! touch urself this afternoon but stop before u come and see how alive u feel**

* * *

The commute home to their apartment takes about a century longer than normal. Atem isn’t in outright pain, exactly - the weights on his piercings are too small for that - but his whole body feels like a raw nerve, every sway of the subway car or incidental contact from a stranger making him wish he could jump to the ceiling and cling there like a spider. It’s possible that forcing himself to work on a bad brain day, even with Yugi’s help, was not the wisest decision he’s ever made. He touches his wrist cuffs a lot, and flexes his feet to feel the cuffs on his ankles, and endures.

He gets in the door, and Yugi is already headed toward him, having heard his key in the lock. He looks excited, like he really does intend to jump Atem right there, but one look at Atem’s face and he slows down, clearly recalculating.

“Hey,” he says, “was today a lot?” Atem nods. Yugi starts to hug him, then thinks better of it and goes for a side hug and a quick kiss. He drops to a crouch and takes off Atem’s shoes.

“Food or bed?”

“I just…” Atem’s not sure how to say this. “I need to be… quiet. For a little while.”

Yugi’s eyebrows shoot up. “You don’t want those off?” He waves at Atem’s chest.

“No,” he says carefully, “not yet.”

A slow smile spreads across Yugi’s face. “I know just the thing. Over here.” He takes Atem’s hand and leads him into the living room, sits down on the couch, and looks up at Atem.

“Why don’t you pick how you want to sit down?” The deliberate way he says it makes Atem stop and think about it.

After a moment he folds to his knees, leaning his side against the couch and his head against Yugi’s thigh. Yugi’s fingers slip into his hair.

“Good boy.” Atem shudders with the strangeness and rightness of that, closing his eyes against pinpricks of tears. “You’ve been so good today, so strong and beautiful. I can’t believe you wore those silly things for me all day. Was it hard?”

Atem nods, but needs to add, “Would have been harder without them.”

“I’m glad it helped.” Yugi strokes his hair, over and over, and it makes the strain of the day fall away from him like dust. He’s sliding inexorably toward a still, blissful space inside himself. Once he’s there he’ll be pure response, but on the way he’s free to reach out.

Yugi has been silent, giving him the quiet he asked for. Now Atem volunteers, “A client was disrespectful today. I threatened him with breach of contract. Kaiba would be proud.”

“Let’s not tell him. His ego doesn’t need any more feeding.” Yugi’s fingers steal down to the nape of Atem’s neck. “Did you touch yourself this afternoon, like I asked?”

“Yes.” In the enclosed office back from the little waiting room, biting his lip and twisting in his seat. “Not for long.”

“So wound up,” Yugi croons. “Ready for me to unwind you now?”

Atem rolls his head to look up at Yugi, whose breath catches at whatever he sees on Atem’s face. “I want you to do whatever you want to me.”

“Oh,” Yugi sighs, stroking Atem’s cheek. “Look at you. You really mean that.”

Atem nods, and turns his head to kiss Yugi's palm.

“I’m going to take such good care of you. Come with me.” He tugs Atem to his feet, and Atem follows him like a floating balloon on a string into the bedroom.

“Let’s get you undressed.” Yugi unbuttons and unzips, and Atem holds out his arms and steps where he’s told until he’s naked. Yugi strips rapidly out of his own clothes and then walks around Atem, looking him up and down. Atem shivers, feeling the weight of his gaze like a physical caress.

“You’re in a state.” Yugi gives one nipple ring a light flick, and Atem gasps as his tender flesh transmits the touch to his whole body. His cock, oversensitive from so much frustrated arousal, starts to fill yet again. Yugi looks at it and licks his lips.

“Yeah, okay.” He steers Atem to the bed and lays him down on his back, then kneels on the bed between Atem’s spread legs. He rubs soothing hands up and down Atem’s sides, then very gently removes the charms from his nipple rings. Lying flat, there’s no weight to be relieved of, but they do feel oddly exposed without the little loops of chain and gems.

Atem realizes this was on purpose when Yugi fastens his open mouth to one, barbell and all, and lays his fingertips on the other. Atem sucks in a deep, unsteady breath, and Yugi molds his upper body to Atem’s lower body, warm skin pressing flush against him all the way down to Atem’s cock against Yugi’s chest. The softest of licks, the lightest pressure from his fingers, and Atem is fully hard and reeling with sensation.

This is the thing about Yugi: when he has a goal, the steps he takes in its pursuit might seem playful, innocuous, even erratic, but his long game is implacable and devastating. A foregone conclusion. This works out _extremely well_ for Atem when his goal is to take Atem apart.

Yugi licks and sucks and fondles the tender nubs, switching sides at regular intervals, exquisitely gentle. Atem is torn between twisting away and arching up for more, kneading fretfully at Yugi’s shoulders. His moans pitch higher as the overstimulation builds into actual pain, and Yugi lifts his head.

“You’re doing so good, Atem, I love hearing you.” He works his way down Atem’s stomach, placing hot, wet kisses in a winding trail, then looks up with a goofy grin. “Let’s see what kind of tune I can play on you down here.” With that, he takes Atem’s cock into his mouth, sliding down as far as he can in one smooth motion.

Atem shouts, grabbing fistfuls of bedsheet to avoid pulling Yugi’s hair. The tension that’s been oscillating in him all day begins to draw tight, coiling deep in his abdomen, answering the hungry way Yugi licks and sucks and bobs his head, holding Atem’s hips in both hands. He’s messy, making loud slurps and muffled grunts that keep getting cut off by Atem’s cock hitting the back of his throat. Atem is being _consumed_ by Yugi, and by pleasure that is finally, finally passing the point of no return.

Atem has been beyond words since before he got off his knees, so the building crescendo of his groans will have to be warning enough. His whole body goes taut, from his toes curling into the mattress to his squeezed-shut eyelids, and the pressure breaks and unspools out of him as he comes for a small eternity down Yugi’s throat. He collapses, gasping open-mouthed, Yugi drawing wave after wave of pleasure over him until he sinks deep into euphoria.

Yugi releases him, and it’s the right moment to do so because Yugi chose it. His pupils are blown as he looks at Atem, drinking in the sight of him. Atem smiles dizzily back, and Yugi chuckles.

“Oh man, you’re there now, huh.” He pats Atem’s cheek, and Atem nuzzles his face into Yugi’s hand. Yugi comes up and kisses his mouth, then rubs their noses together and says, “I’ll keep you there as long as I can. I’ll take care of you, other me.” Of course he will. Yugi is brilliant, both a genius and a shining soul, and Atem basks in his light without a care in the world.

Yugi gets the lube out of the nightstand. Atem’s legs had straightened out when he came, and now Yugi moves his feet up and pushes his bent knees to fall outward. He slicks up Atem’s entrance, and starts pushing one finger in and out.

“It’s hard to describe,” he says, “what it feels like to have you like this. Trusting me so completely. I feel about ten feet tall.” He adds another finger, and now he can spread and twist them, softening and stretching the ring of muscle. “You’re so blissed-out, you’re opening up really easily. But I still have to be careful, because right now you and pain are on different planets.” He smirks. “Plus, you know, I like taking my time. Feeling you, looking at you.” He crooks his fingers and pulls them partly out, looking at what he’s doing. “Like a hungry little mouth, brown on the outside, pink on the inside.”

This surprises a laugh out of Atem, and then a deep sigh when Yugi adds a third finger. There’s no burning at all; Yugi’s right, he can’t feel pain right now. The pressure feels _very_ nice, though, especially when Yugi sinks his fingers deep and finds Atem’s prostate. His cock stirs.

“Bingo,” says Yugi. He works Atem steadily, splaying his fingers, rotating his wrist, rubbing his other hand soothingly on Atem’s belly as he wakes exhausted, tender parts for another round. “You’re doing so well, Atem, taking so much for me. You’ll take this, too, I know you will, because you’re amazing.”

He doesn’t spend a lot of time after adding a fourth finger, just checking to see Atem can take it easily while Yugi slicks up his own erection. Then he pulls out, lines up his cock, and sinks into Atem’s ass in one smooth thrust. Atem’s moan sounds wild and lost, but he’s never been more sure of where he is, pinned and penetrated by Yugi, body and soul.

“Amazing,” Yugi groans, “you feel so - fucking - good.” His rhythm is heavy and relentless, the endgame he’s been setting up this whole time. This is the flipside to the bedrock; this is the avalanche, the pounding surf, the force of nature in Yugi’s heart, and Atem surrenders to it and lets it carry him where it will.

Yugi takes Atem’s hand, and presses his palm against his abdomen. “Feel that? Feel me moving inside you?” He pushes deep from both sides at the same time, and Atem _can_ feel it, a blunt, probing hardness. He looks up at Yugi, and trusts him to see on Atem’s face all the things he can’t say right now. Yugi gives him a breathless, red-faced smile; he’s starting to work up a serious sweat, fucking so hard.

“Yeah,” he pants, “You can feel it. Other me. You can take everything I have to give.” With that pronouncement he shifts his weight onto one hand and starts jacking Atem’s cock, a downstroke for every time he slams into Atem’s ass.

If his first orgasm was a wire pulling tight until it snapped, this one is a vessel welling up until it overflows. It just builds and builds and builds, and Atem doesn’t tense up at all, just suddenly starts to quake as he comes. His cock spurts forcefully when Yugi fucks in and dribbles when he pulls back. He’s distantly aware of making some kind of drawn-out, wobbly moan, that peaks sharply as Yugi speeds up. Yugi thrusts even harder for a few strokes before he shouts and goes still, cock pulsing as deep inside Atem as he can get.

He falls onto Atem after that, barely holding himself up enough to cover Atem’s face with kisses, moaning into his mouth with the aftershocks. Feebly, Atem lifts his hands and lays them on Yugi’s back.

“God,” Yugi groans, _“I_ can barely move. That was incredible. You’re incredible.”

Atem taps his back with one finger. _No, you._ Yugi chuckles. “Call it a team effort, maybe.” Reluctantly he eases his cock out of Atem’s ass, and Atem whimpers at the separation, and the sensation of Yugi dragging free - not entirely blissful anymore. Yugi heaves up onto his elbows and gives Atem another deep, drugging kiss, then says, “I need to get some things before you start to drop, okay? I’ll be right back.” He drags the blankets - pushed back to the foot of the bed - up over them both, then gets the baby wipes from the nightstand and mops up the worst of the mess from Atem’s torso. He slips out from under the blankets and darts off. Atem shivers under the blankets, bereft.

But Yugi is true to his word and comes back almost immediately with a plate, a water bottle, and a couple of thick bath towels. He sets it all on the nightstand and gets back under the covers, then grabs a towel. “Lift up - that’s right, good.” He slides it under Atem’s lower body, and Atem sighs with relief to be freed from the wet spot he hadn’t even noticed until it was gone. With the other towel Yugi dries him off, both the dampness from the wipes and the sweat all over. He tosses that towel on the floor, drapes himself over Atem again, and holds the water bottle up to his lips. “Drink some for me, okay?”

Atem obeys, and is surprised by how much he drinks; he hadn’t felt thirsty until he tasted the water. “Oh, good job,” Yugi murmurs, and, shyly, “good boy.”

Atem startles himself with his sniffle at that, and the tears that well up in his eyes. “Hey, it’s okay,” Yugi says, setting the water bottle aside and then kissing his face.

“I don’t - know what’s wrong with me,” Atem rasps.

“Nothing, you’re doing great. We read about this, remember? Your brain had you on the good drugs, and now you’re starting to come down, that’s all.” Yugi molds himself to Atem, chafing his sides. “I’m here, and I’m still taking care of you. We’ve even got snacks if you want.”

“Snacks?”

“Yeah, I was serious about the finger food.” He reaches over and brings the plate closer, then holds a chunk of melon to Atem’s lips. Atem takes it, and almost cries again at how good it tastes. He realizes he’s ravenous. Yugi feeds him cut fruit, cheese, cucumber and tomato, even pieces of tuna maki-zushi.

“You made maki?”

“Hell no, I bought maki. I’m not screwing around with that when I can pay a professional and have more time to screw around with _you.”_ He pops a grape into his own mouth with a wink.

“You should eat too.”

“Nah, I ate a bunch before you got home.”  With the maki gone, he feeds Atem a slice of pickled ginger. “You still hungry, or are you good?”

Atem thinks. “I’m good.” Warm, dry, hydrated, and fed, he feels much steadier, able to tap into the residual glow from what they just did. _“Really_ good.” He rolls onto his side and hugs Yugi tight. “Thank you.”

Yugi laughs. “Thank _you.”_

“For what? You did all the work.”

“It’s not work; it’s a gift. When you trust me to help you… it’s everything.” He kisses Atem’s forehead, and repeats, “It means everything.” With a smile in his voice, he adds, “It’s also so, so, _so_ sexy. Ten years ago, if someone told sixteen-year-old me I’d end up here, I would’ve swallowed my tongue. Or maybe came in my pants.”

“Well, for the sake of your pants, I’m glad it was a surprise.”

They venture as far as the living room couch for some gaming and, later, more snacks, before turning right back around and going to bed.

That night, Atem dreams again that they are dead, but this time they are both mummies, lying hand-in-hand in a furnished tomb. They are attired in all things right and proper, bandages laden with amulets and sacred spice, death masks gazing peacefully out into eternity. They can go forth from here. Atem goes back to sleep to wait for morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [This meta on dueling styles](https://toffeecape.tumblr.com/post/174021099027/ay-tee-kay-on-dueling-styles-ive-been-thinking) (saved as a reblog for a stable link) is directly responsible for Atem's reflections on Yugi's personality.
> 
> 2\. ZOMG behold this [delightful art](https://malikbishtar.tumblr.com/post/182958461790/i-can-explain-its-most-definitely-inspired-by) by [TuesdayinThedas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TuesdayinThedas/pseuds/TuesdayinThedas)!


End file.
